If your dog is prone to pick up fleas, the best thing you can do is keep the fur well groomed and bathe every week with the following mixture: For every 2 tsp. of Melaleuca Original Shampoo add 1 tsp. Jojoba oil. Mix well. Shampoo the dog, avoiding the eyes and rinse well. Apply coat conditioner between washes.
Showing posts with label Fleas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fleas. Show all posts
Saturday, September 28, 2013
Winter is the Best Time to Fight Fleas
By Linda Cole
Fleas are nasty little critters that think nothing of hitching a ride on our pets or on us anywhere in our homes. One or two fleas may not seem like a problem, but it only takes a few to morph into a serious infestation in a matter of weeks. Winter is the best time to attack and mount a counter offensive against this invading pest that can be hard to find and even harder to eliminate. The first line of defense begins by understanding the life cycle of fleas.
Just because you don’t find fleas on your pet, doesn’t mean you don’t have a flea problem. That’s because adult fleas spend most of their time in your home rather than on your pet. Our pets are nothing more than a meal ticket and a place to lay eggs or hitch a ride. The female flea will lay eggs anywhere in the home, not just on your dog or cat. Not only are fleas a biting terror, some have tapeworm eggs which can infect your pet.
The perfect temperature for the flea life cycle is between 70 and 85 degrees and 70% humidity. Winter is the best time to attack fleas because lower humidity levels can slow their development down. They are still in the environment, but less active. If you have a flea infestation in your home, only 5% are adult fleas. The real problem is the remaining population made up of 50% eggs, 30% larvae and 15% pupae.
The flea life cycle begins with the egg
An adult female flea can lay up to 50 eggs per day. Eggs that have been laid on your pet will drop off onto carpets, furniture, our beds, your pet’s bedding, along baseboards and cracks in wood flooring. Winter is the best time to attack a flea infestation because under ideal conditions, the tiny white eggs will hatch in about 2 days up to a couple of weeks. The dry heat from our furnaces slows the process and gives you more time to move furniture and do a deep cleaning of carpets, furniture and along the floor before the eggs move to the second stage.
The second stage of the flea life cycle: larvae
At this stage, they can move using tiny hairs that are attached to the larvae. They will go through three transformations as larvae and eat the feces of adult fleas (dried blood), organic material they find in carpets, bedding and outside in the soil. This stage will last 5 to 18 days and can be longer depending on weather conditions. The larvae will then spin a cocoon and move into the next stage.
The third stage of the flea life cycle: pupae
This is the last stage before fleas become adults. The flea will stay in this stage anywhere from 3 or 5 days up to a year or more if necessary. At this point, they are only waiting for the right conditions to emerge into adult biting pests.
Being aware of the life cycle of fleas helps to understand why winter is the ideal season to fight these nasty pests. First of all, it’s important to continue treating your pets with flea control throughout the winter months. The next step is to begin an aggressive cleaning offensive. Vacuuming daily will help pick up fleas in all four stages. Add a flea collar or spray flea control directly into the bag to kill any fleas you picked up and immediately remove the vacuum bag when you are finished. If you leave the bag in the vacuum, any fleas that hatch and are not affected by the flea collar or spray will have a chance to escape and start their own egg laying. Don’t forget to vacuum all of the furniture as well as along the baseboards and under the furniture.
To help break the life cycle of fleas, wash all bedding, removable furniture coverings and clothing your pet may have been on. For severe infestation, winter is the best time to attack fleas with a visit from your local pest control company. Foggers can also be used, but make sure to follow all of the instructions, warnings and cautions if using foggers.
Winter is the best time to combat fleas because you have a fighting chance of getting a handle on any infestations you may have. Unfortunately, you could have millions of fleas in your home in one stage of development or another, and dealing with them is an ongoing battle. But if you take advantage of the flea’s slower development during the winter months, you may be able to break the life cycle of the flea. It may take some time, but with proper flea control and dedicated cleaning practices, it is a battle you can win.
Read more articles by Linda Cole
Does Your Dog Have Fleas?
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With nearly 2,000 species and subspecies, fleas thrive in warm, humid environments, and feed on the blood of their hosts. Dogs play host to the cat flea (Ctenocephalides felis), whose dark brown or black body is usually 1 to 3 millimeters in length.
Why Are Dogs Susceptible to Fleas?
Fleas are hearty and nimble, and when searching for a host, they can jump 10,000 times in a row (the length of three football fields). Three pairs of legs make for excellent leaping capabilities (up to 2 feet), and a laterally flattened body allows for quick movement in a dog’s fur.
With a complete life cycle ranging anywhere from 16 days to 21 months, depending on environmental conditions, fleas are most commonly found on a dog’s abdomen, the base of the tail and the head. With heavy infestations, however, fleas can thrive anywhere on the body. They feed once every day or two, and generally remain on their host during the interim.
What Are Some Signs of Fleas in Dogs?
- Droppings or “flea dirt†in a dog’s coat
- Flea eggs on dog or in dog’s environment
Allergic dermatitis- Excessive scratching, licking or biting at skin
Hair loss- Scabs and hot spots
Pale gums- Tapeworms
What Are Some Complications of Fleas in Dogs?
Since fleas can consume 15 times their own body weight in blood, they can cause anemia or a significant amount of blood loss over time. This is especially problematic in young puppies, where an inadequate number of red blood cells can be life-threatening to some dogs. Signs of parasitic anemia include pale gums, cold body temperature and listlessness.
When a dog has a heightened sensitivity to the saliva of fleas, just one bite of a flea can cause an allergic reaction. This condition is known as flea allergy dermatitis and causes intense itching and discomfort for your dog. Signs include generalized hair loss, reddened skin, scabs and hot spots. Flea allergy dermatitis often leads to skin infections.
Are Certain Dogs Prone to Fleas?
Dogs who live in warm, humid climates, where fleas thrive at temperatures of 65 to 80 F, and those who live outdoors are most vulnerable to fleas.
What Should I Do If I Think My Dog Has Fleas?
Consult your veterinarian, who will confirm the diagnosis and discuss appropriate treatment options. It is important to tailor your treatment to your pet and his environment, since certain products in combination can be toxic. Your veterinarian can also determine the best plan for preventing fleas in the future.
How Do I Treat Fleas?
 It is important that all of your pets are treated for fleas, including indoor and outdoor cats, and that the environment is treated as well.
Speak with your veterinarian about choosing the right flea treatment product. Common options include a topical, liquid treatment applied to the back of the neck, shampoos, sprays and powders. Some products kill both adult fleas and their eggs, but they can vary in efficacy. It is very important not to use products on your dog that are intended for cats (and vice versa). Prescription products are generally more effective and safer than over-the-counter products.
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Thoroughly clean your house, including rugs, bedding and upholstery. (Remember to discard any vacuum bags.) In severe cases, you might consider using a spray or fogger, which requires temporary evacuation of the home.
How Can I Prevent Fleas?
Using a flea comb on your dog and washing his bedding once a week will go a long way toward controlling flea infestation. Also, it is important to treat your yard as thoroughly as your house. Concentrate on shady areas, where fleas live, and use an insecticide or nematodes, microscopic worms that kill flea larvae.
Dog Itching But No Fleas?
First you must determine the primary cause for the itching.
These are some of the most common causes of itching dog
Hypoallergenic Dogs
Fleas
The diagnosis of an infestation of fleas is quite simple and clear, but consider that it should be checked first. A quick visual inspection of your dog’s skin should eliminate or identify as the culprit. If fleas are identified, there are a number of over the counter flea baths and medication to get rid of fleasyour dog.
Scabies
Mange is a skin disease caused by microscopic mites that caused a house to come and make your dog’s skin. These tiny mites can be very severe itching and hair loss as well.
To properly diagnose scabies, a skin scraping and inspections are required under the microscope. If it is determined that the itch of mange your dog has a problem, then your veterinarian may prescribe a medication, or you can integrate some safer alternatives, like the human touch that attempts have shownThe results in this area.
Psychologically
Psychological problems can and usually are more difficult to diagnose and treat properly. Before all these questions with any kind of fear, plagueing your dog to do. If you have a reled of other causes, there are products out there for a calming effect on animals, to promote the reduction of anxiety in your dog.
The story follows the conditions for the vast majority of dogs causes itching and often can be treated in thesimple as well.
Nutritional
Deficiencies in nutrition undoubtedly cause dry skin and itching of your dog. Difficult as it may be to believe, that most commercial dog food does not contain all the nutritional requirements that your dog needs to maintain optimal health.
There are a lot more effort in taste and marketing of food for dogs in the actual creation of a quality food that dog with optimal nutrition for your dog.
Allergies
There are manycan cause a variety of factors that cause allergies in your dog. Like people, dogs can be allergic to some of the same elements that we are like dust, mold and pollen.
I know it’s almost impossible to eliminate the substances in the air, but there are some things you can do to minimize exposure. You can reduce hypoallergenic filters the air in the house as if there was outdoor exposure during peak allergy seasons. Or even easier, there are case studies, the quality was shownVitamin dog was a little ‘effective in reducing allergic symptoms, strengthening the immune system.
Probably the most common causes of allergies and often neglected dog is directly with the dog food they consume together. Just as in our case, food allergies are very common in dogs. This could be as simple as changing your dog’s food to be solved.
Since the majority of veterinarians and dog health professionals agree, is the first and most important thing to note for the correct voltageand nutrition of your dog.
Providing high quality dog foods containing plenty of good sources of protein, and that are low in meat by products and grains will ensure that your dog has a boosted immune system and healthy digestive system.
Supplementing your dogs diet with a quality dog vitamin will ensure that your dog will have the optimum dietary requirements to maintain a healthy immune defense against allergies and a whole host of other ailments as well.
Dog Itching But No Fleas?
Home Remedy For Repelling Ticks & Fleas
It is that time of year again!! Fleas and ticks are starting to be reborn just to terrorize us and our beloved animals.
However, there is good news!! You do not have to go broke treating your animals, yourself or your yard to repel these nasty boogers. You can make your own using natural ingredients at half the cost. Below are a few ways to keep the ticks off you, your pets and your yard.
Ticks HATE Garlic so as my Grandmother and Ben Franklin use to say…. “An ounce of prevention is greater than a pound of cure.“ Plant garlic in your yard, around your yard or anywhere you do not want the ticks to live. Not only will these deter them from your yard, you will also have fresh garlic when you need it. You can also eat raw garlic or take garlic tabs so it is in your blood. They can smell it and will not attach themselves to you if garlic is in your system. (Garlic tabs are safe for your dogs as well.
- You can either use neem oil or soak neem leaves in hot water and then apply this on the skin.
For Pets; Prepare a general flea and tick spray by mixing 2.5 ml (1/2 ounce) of organic neem oil with 1-2 ml (1/4-1/2 ounce) of mild soap or detergent and 2 cups water. For a stronger solution if there is a problem or the dog will be going into deep bug country, mix 5 ml neem oil, 2 ml mild soap or detergent and 2 cups water. Use warm, not hot, water to dissolve the oil. Mix water and soap first and then slowly add neem oil for flea and tick control. Add to sprayer and use immediately. Discard after use. Neem oil is unstable and breaks down after 8 hours. Mix new each time.- Place a few drops of neem oil on palms and simply rub hands through your pet’s fur for effective flea and tick control. Neem oil is best used this way for dogs, only, not for cats. For sensitive dogs, dilute the neem oil 1:10 in a light carrier oil like almond or jojoba and rub palms first. Then run hands thoroughly through the dog’s coat for natural, effective flea and tick control.
Warnings
Caution is advised when using neem oil on animals that are breeders or about to be bred. Use neem oil at half strength for flea and tick control.
Do not treat cats with concentrated neem oil that is left on the skin. Using neem leaf tea is far safer for felines. Â
- Tea Tree oil is a great repellent. Once mixed, you spray it on the skin or fur and rub in. I also make sure and pray it on our shoes and pant legs if we are going camping or into the woods so we don’t carry home any piggy back riders.
- To make; Mix two ounces of tea tree oil in water and pour it in a spray bottle. Spray this regularly on your skin.
- You can also Spray your yard area with this mixture.
Other effective natural remedies:
- Natural herbs; Lavender oil, Lavender plants, Lemon Grass, Peppermint or citronella are all very effective in keeping fleas off your yard. We make sure to have some every year and we have not had to use chemicals on our yard/ house or body for fleas, ticks or mosquitoes in 3 years now.Â
- A few more ways to repel fleas and ticks; eucalyptus, myrrh, rosewood, or Lemon.
- Lemon; Take 6 lemons and cut in half. Boil these in a quart of water and steep for a few hours. Strain the solution and pour it into a spray bottle. Spray the solution on the pet’s fur but avoid the eyes.
These are just a few of the simple ways you can prevent an infestation of fleas or ticks in your living area and make the family pet a happy go lucky Fido instead of a miserable, itchy one.
Please feel free to leave ideas and other remedies in the comment section below!!
8 Ways To Control Dog Fleas.
There are numerous products that will kill adult fleas on your dog. However, they vary in the duration of their effects.
1. Flea shampoos, sprays, and powders. Most products will kill any fleas present on your dog at the time of application, but many have no lasting effect – your dog may have more fleas within 24 hours of being treated. When using a flea shampoo, always begin on the dog’s head, face, and ears so the fleas won’t run for shelter in those hard to reach areas. Be extra careful not to drip any solution in your pet’s eyes. Applying the solution with a sponge is helpful. All shampoos should be rinsed thoroughly from the coat.
Some of the newer, more effective sprays can be a valuable part of the overall treatment plan. They kill adult fleas rapidly and are safe enough to use daily, if necessary. Flea sprays containing insect growth regulators (IGR’s) are helpful in managing the overall problem because they help to break the flea life cycle. Be sure to read the label when using any of these products, because they might be recommended for once a week application, instead of daily.
Flea powders are easy to use – simply sprinkle on your dog’s coat.
2. Flea rinses or dips. These may be effective for four to five days, depending on the product. The rinse is applied after the dog has been shampooed and not rinsed out and left to dry on the dog’s coat. You need to dip the entire dog from nose to tail. Follow directions carefully regarding frequency throughout the flea season.
Pet shops and supermarkets sell a huge variety of flea dips and shampoos for your pet. If your dog has only a few fleas, there’s no reason why you can’t treat him yourself. Make sure to follow the label instructions on whatever product you buy, and pay close attention to age restrictions. Many products are not suitable for young puppies. Never use cat products on dogs.
As with flea shampoos, when using a flea dip, always begin on the dog’s head, face, and ears so the fleas won’t run for shelter in those hard to reach areas. Be extra careful not to drip any solution in your pet’s eyes. Applying the solution with a sponge is helpful.
You might want to take your dog to the veterinarian where either an assistant or a groomer on staff will dip your pet, or take your dog to a grooming shop for flea treatment.
3. Sprays containing flea growth regulators which are called IGR’s. These sprays are usually applied weekly and the growth regulators help break the flea’s life cycle.
4. Flea collars. Flea collars are an easy, economical, and useful method of flea control when used before you see fleas, but aren’t very effective if you already a flea problem. Flea collars are on the dog and working 24 hours per day. However, they are not very effective in climates that are especially conducive to flea reproduction. Many people don’t like the smell of insecticidal flea collars or the smell and oily feeling the insecticide leaves on their hands after petting a dog wearing one. But, they are a lot better than nothing!
Many flea collars, such as the Ovitrol Plus or Ovitrol Plus II sold by veterinarians, kill adult fleas and also make flea eggs sterile. These are generally called Egg-Stopper Collars and contain insect growth regulating ingredients, which prevents egg from hatching.
Some dogs are sensitive to flea collars and develop a skin irritation under the collar, so if this happens, you should remove the collar and use another method of flea control.
In addition, there are High Tech Electronic Flea Collars for dogs that emit powerful ultrasonic pulses. They are supposed to be inaudible and harmless to pets and humans but, fleas go crazy!
Do-it-yourself Low Tech Herbal flea collar – effects last approximately one month:
Buy a soft untreated flea collar. Mix 1/2 teaspoon rubbing alcohol, essential oils of 1 drop cedar wood oil, 1 drop lavender, 1 drop citronella, 1 drop thyme oil. Open the contents of four garlic capsules into mixture. Soak flea collar until it has absorbed sufficient mixture soaked through, then let dry.
5. Spot-on products. Advantage® and Frontline® are two brand name products that are applied topically to a small area of the dog’s skin and they effectively kill fleas for at least a month. They are purchased in small vials that contain one dose for various sizes of dogs. They kill adult fleas, usually before the flea has the opportunity to bite your dog.
When using some of the new residual topical treatments such as the spray and the liquid applied to the dog’s neck, you may find environmental control will become much less a concern. In some cases, treating the dog with these new products will effectively control the environmental problem.
6. The pill. (Programâ„¢) This product prevents flea eggs from hatching when administered orally to pets once a month at mealtime. Dogs are fed Program in tablet form. Different tablet sizes and suspension doses are prescribed according to the animal’s weight. When an adult female flea bites a Program-treated dog, the flea ingests the active ingredient (lufenuron) which then passes into her eggs and prevents them from hatching. Program is dispensed only through veterinarians. This drug does not kill the adult fleas on your dog, but it does break the flea life cycle by preventing hatching of the next generation of flea eggs. In effect, it kills the next generation of fleas.
A similar product called Sentinel contains both the flea control ingredient and heartworm medication all in one dosage.
7. Natural methods include essential herbal oils, essential fatty acids, garlic, and/or B vitamins tend to make the animal less tasty to fleas. You can supplement with garlic or brewers yeast tablets. Some animals are allergic to brewers yeast, so watch closely the first week or so to make sure the itching doesn’t get worse.
8. Flea Combs. Run the comb through your pet’s hair and gather a bit of hair and “flea dirt”. Daily flea combing may seem like a tedious process, but you can trap some of them in the comb. Be sure to drown them in soapy water, because fleas can jump out of plain water.
Author : Want a happier, healthier pooch? http://www.pet-supplies-review.com makes it easy to find relevant information about your four-legged friend.
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Friday, September 27, 2013
Do you have ticks and fleas with your dogs?
Q: How did my dog get these fleas and ticks?
A: The way animals get fleas is some other flea-infested animal – a stray dog or stray cat, or some other neighbors’ dog or cat, or urban wildlife, mainly opossums and raccoons – went through your neighborhood, your yard, and the female flea is laying eggs and the eggs are basically rained off into your environment. We call them a living salt shaker. And then those eggs developed into adults and those fleas jumped onto your pet. That’s how it happened.
Dogs generally get ticks because they’re out in that environment, walking through the woods or high grass, and these ticks undergo what’s called questing, where they crawl up on these low shrubs or grass, generally 18 to 24 inches off the ground and they basically hang out. And when the dog walks by or we walk by and brush up against these ticks they dislodge and get onto us. Ticks don’t climb up into trees. That’s an old myth. They just lie in wait for us. It’s sort of an ambush strategy. They can live well over a year without feeding.
Q: Can fleas and ticks cause my dog to get sick? What kinds of illnesses can she get from them?
A: Probably the most common thing is, when these fleas are feeding, they’re injecting saliva into the skin. These salivary proteins are often allergenic and animals end up with allergy. The most common skin disease of dogs and cats is what’s called flea allergy dermatitis, where they bite and scratch and lose their hair. It can take only a few fleas for this allergy to become a problem.
If you have a lot of fleas, since they’re blood-sucking insects, especially if you have puppies, pets can become anemic and even die with heavy infestations. Fleas also commonly transmit tapeworms to our pets, at least one species.
With ticks, there are a dozen to 15 or more tick-transmitted diseases that our pets get from ticks. There’s tick fever,Lyme disease, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, tularemia, ehrlichiosis, and more. Many of these diseases can kill pets.
Q: Are fleas and ticks worse in some areas?
A: Ticks and fleas can be worse from one area to another and can vary seasonally and from year to year. As you move inland, however, depending on the rainfall in a given year, it can be OK or get very horrid at times.
Ticks have different biologies and behaviors, of course. And certain areas have more tick problems than others. .
Q: What are the best ways to control fleas?A: Besides the flea products we’ve discussed, if you have a cat, don’t ever let it go outside. Try to keep your home as dry as possible. I would recommend not having any carpet because carpet is a flea’s best friend. Keep the brush and weeds in your yard to an absolute minimum.
Q: Are there natural ways I can control them if I don’t want to use chemicals?
A: There really aren’t from a natural standpoint. Over the years, we’ve spent some time looking into the more natural or holistic approaches and as yet I’ve not found any that’s actually effective. The garlic, the brewer’s yeast, all the research shows none of that stuff works. If it did, I’d be using it. The ultrasonic devices? The data shows they don’t work.
And just because something is “natural†or “organic†that doesn’t mean it’s safe. Most of the poisons in the world are actually organic poisons. Some of these citric extracts people used to use can be fairly toxic to cats. The cats’ livers just can’t handle them.
There is diatomacious earth, which is basically microscopic silicone particles that can be spread around in your carpet. They scratch or excoriate the flea larvae. But you’ve got to be a little careful. You don’t want to inhale the stuff, because now you’ve inhaled silicone particles into your lungs and where’s that going to go? There are pesticide control firms that apply that stuff appropriately, and when they do it’s very effective and it’s safe. But just make sure if you have somebody do it in your house it’s done appropriately. It’s a very good larvacidal and a flea preventative measure if it’s done correctly.
Q: How can I control fleas and ticks in my yard?
A: Cut the tall grass, trim back the bushes and shrubs, then rake up all the leaf litter under the bushes. Leave it just bare ground. There are some lawn and garden insecticides that are approved by the EPA to be applied under shrubs, under bushes, in crawl spaces, along fence lines, to control fleas and ticks outside. The big issue I see is people tend to go out and start spraying their grass. That’s not effective and it’s certainly not good for the environment. Fleas and ticks are really sunlight and humidity sensitive. Most situations where we find them are under shrubs, under bushes, under porches, in shaded, protected habitats. So we should only be applying those compounds in a limited fashion under those locations. Then we’re going to let it dry on the foliage for three to four hours before we allow our pets and our children back out there.
Q:How I can control ticks on my dogs?
A:You should use most effective and powerful insecticidal used to control ticks.There are various tick control products you can get from your nearest vet.Don’t go for pharmacist as they can offer you unnecessary products which are not use in controlling ticks on dogs.
Frontline Plus for dogs to fight fleas and ticks
When the dogs or cats are healthy and are playing with their owners and as a result the environment of the house is very much infused with endless ooze of energy, but when pet animals such as cats and dogs start to slowly deviate themselves from these activities due to an ailment, dog or cat lovers lose sleep and peace over it. Thus, a close watch must be kept on dogs and cats as to what kind of symptoms they are showing so that a proper diagnosis is done and proper medicines are taken so that the disease is cured and the pet animals are able to get back to their normal days.
This is more evident as a bad condition called fleas and ticks have started to attack dogs and whose symptoms are hard to distinguish. However, when a too much scratching becomes order of the day followed by refusal of favorite food and a keep off from activities that they used to love; dogs must be taken to a vet doctor and get tested for fleas and ticks.
Once fleas and ticks are confirmed, taking good flea remedies for dogs become a must. But, taking any of the flea remedies for dogs must not be done as most of them are laced with harmful side-effects that give rise to other complications such as Lyme’s disease and Tapeworms. That’s where taking Frontline Plus for dogs as side-effects free flea remedies for dogs is good as it works for a period of 30 days after just one use and also works harmlessly to cure fleas and ticks in the most candid manner.
So, what are you waiting for? Give your pooch the option of giving them nothing but the safety of the best flea remedies for dogs in the form of Frontline Plus for dogs and bring them back to the normal and shiny days of life. All the best!
Visit Generic Frontline Plus and find out more information about Frontline for Dogs. You may also visit our blog to subscribe for regular pet care product.
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November | 2009 | old fleas new dogs
What happens on the screen? Actually, very little. Husband, a liberal newspaper publisher, neglects pretty young wife. Wife is attracted to husband’s young cousin, a dashing derelict. He nobly departs just in time, and the couple begin again—yes, older and wiser. That’s it. It takes nearly two hours. As do all Ray films, it moves like a majestic snail.
As usual, Mr. Ray has composed the picture in the most literal sense of the word—and exquisitely. He has made the most of beautiful young Madhabi Mukherjee, who gives a lustrously affecting and almost mind-readable performance as the yearning heroine.
In a sense, the very opening shot—Miss Mukherjee’s hands darting a needle into an embroidery hoop—keys all that follows. Arranging every single camera frame to convey nuance, mood or tension, Mr. Ray has photographically embroidered a steady flow of quiet images with precise, striking acuity. One montage—when the day-dreaming wife, in a garden swing, rocks to and fro like a pendulum—is unforgettable. And the final shot in the film—a stop-motion close-up of two hands—is a memorable period to Mr. Ray’s structure. –Howard Thompson, The New York Times
Charulata is an exquisitely shot, sublimely haunting, and emotionally complex film on the nature of human relationships. At the heart of the conflict are three well-intentioned, sympathetic protagonists – Bhupati, Charulata, and Amal – who clearly love and respect each other, but realize that their individual actions have led to an unforeseeable, yet inevitable emotional betrayal. Satyajit Ray does not dilute the gravity of the situation with an act of adultery or violence, but with the subtle gaze of crushing realization and the heartbreaking weight of consequence: Charulata’s concealed apprehension at Amal’s arranged marriage proposal; Amal’s guilt-ridden, sideways glance to Charulata as Bhupati reveals his business problems involving a relative; Bhupati’s lone carriage ride. In the remarkable final shot (inspired by Francois Truffaut’s The 400 Blows) of Bhupati and Charulata’s hands frozen in mid grasp, the words “The Ruined Nest†appear: the title of Rabindranath Tagore’s short novel on which the film was based. It is a poignant reminder that life cannot continue as before – that something has been irretrievably lost from the relationship – and all that can be salvaged are the fragments of human decency that remain… the polite gesture. –strictly film school
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get it from megaupload (part1 part2)
JAMES PENFIELD, the journalist who glowers at the center of the fine new English film â€The Ploughman’s Lunch,†is a fascinating variation on all of the angry, low-born young men who populated British novels and plays in the late 1950′s and 60′s. Although he denies it, he is angry. At one point he says: â€You do everything right and you feel nothing. Either way.†His problem is that he feels everything all too acutely, but it doesn’t make him a better person, only more devious.
James Penfield is Jimmy Porter of â€Look Back in Anger†updated to the 1980′s, specifically to London during the 1982 Falkland war and the Tory leadership of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. â€The Ploughman’s Lunch,†the first theatrical film to be written by Ian McEwan and directed by Richard Eyre, is a witty, bitter tale of duplicity and opportunism in both private and public life. –Vincent Canby, The New York Times
Funded in part by Channel Four and released in 1983, The Ploughman’s Lunch is an ‘issues’ film, commenting on the state of affairs in Britain in the early 1980s. It uses a very contemporary setting to criticise the policies of the Conservative government under Margaret Thatcher, particularly the promotion of self-interest, of ruthless dedication to obtain a desired goal. Each of the film’s main characters embraces these ideas, but in a negative way, using each other to get ahead. Journalist James uses Susan to get to her historian mother, then sleeps with the mother so she will continue to help him with his research. Embarrassed by his working-class parents, he tells people they are dead.
The subtext of the film is the way countries and people re-write their own history to suit the needs of the present. James’ book is about the 1956 Suez Crisis, which was a disaster for Britain and then Prime Minister Anthony Eden. But in the light of the 1982 Falklands War, which for many presented a new image of Britain as a strong and brave country, James re-writes the story of Suez to make it look like a victory. James also writes the news for the radio, so as he re-writes past events to fit a new British image, he also shapes the news as it happens. He also shapes himself, moulding his opinions to fit whoever he is talking to, in order to make the right impression.
The film presents a bleak Britain with little hope for the future. There are almost no sympathetic characters and at the end James learns no lesson. He improves his image, but loses his soul. He gets what he wants, at a price he is prepared to pay. –Simon Brown, screenonline
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get it from megaupload part1 & part2
I vividly remember the experience of sitting in a large, state-of-the-art theater in 1978, encountering this work, which seemed like the shotgun marriage of a Hollywood epic (in 70 mm!) with an avant-garde poem. Wordless (but never soundless) scenes flared up and were snatched away before the mind could fully grasp their plot import; what we could see did not always seem matched to what we could hear. Yes, there was another “couple on the runâ€â€”Richard Gere and Brooke Adams as the lovers Bill and Abby, he fleeing a murder he inadvertently committed working in a Chicago steel mill, she pretending to be his sister during the wheat harvest season in the Texas panhandle near the turn of the twentieth century—but this time, the filmmaker’s gaze upon them was not simply distant or ironic but positively cosmic. And there was so much more going on around these two characters, beyond even the dramatic triangle they formed with the melancholic figure of the dying farmer (Sam Shepard)—now the landscape truly moved from background to foreground, and the work that went on in it, the changes that the seasons wreaked upon it, the daily miracles of shifting natural light or the punctual catastrophes of fire or locust plague that took place . . . all this mattered as much, if not more, than the strictly human element of the film. –Adrian Martin, The Current
At the beginning, it is as though this is going to be a film about European immigrants in the early days of President Wilson’s presidency. Then it switches to the Texas Panhandle, where the buffalo roam and the deer and the antelope still play. Migrant workers, fleeing the big cities, help reap the wheat harvest of a young, wealthy farmer. There are all kinds of special effects, including a plague of locusts and a prairie fire. There is a romance, in which the girlfriend of a young worker, who poses as his sister, marries the farmer. What results is jealousy and murder.
But Days of Heaven never really makes up its mind what it wants to be. It ends up something between a Texas pastoral and Cavalleria Rusticana. Back of what basically is a conventional plot is all kinds of fancy, self-conscious cineaste techniques. The film proceeds in short takes: people seldom say more than two or three connected sentences. It might be described as the mosaic school of filmmaking as the camera and the action hop around, concentrating on a bit here, a bit there.
A young girl named Linda Manz—and a talented young lady she is—has a prominent part of the action. The voice-over that constantly runs through the film is hers; she comments on the action, something in the manner of a Greek chorus. The photography, beautiful as some of it is, is as self-conscious as the rest of the film. People are carefully arranged, frames are carefully composed; there are more silhouettes than in an old nickelodeon.
Anyway, the old cars, and the biplane and triplane in an airplane sequence are fun. –Harold C. Schonberg, The New York Times
or
get it from megaupload
The Mother and the Whore is a raw, unsentimental, and incisive slice-of-life exposition into the demoralization, deflated euphoria, and pervasive rootlessness of the May 68 generation (a period marked by widespread student protests and worker strikes throughout France) in the wake of the failed counterculture revolution. Jean Eustache employs high contrast black and white, medium framing and close-ups, spare (almost squalid) interiors, and natural milieu to create an atmosphere of visually distilled, organic hyperreality that reflect the profound desolation, ambivalent direction, and meaningless rituals that define the unresolved emotional and psychological states of Alexandre, Veronika, and Marie. However, in contrast to the figuratively transcendent images of manual labor in Bresson’s minimalist and dedramatized cinema, Eustache’s illustration of physical activity is inherently inert, self-destructive, and escapist: experimental drug use, intimations of suicide (that sadly presages the filmmaker’s own cause of death in 1981), and Veronika and Marie’s passive, almost autonomic response to Alexandre’s initiations of sex serve as transitory surrogates to the actual process of human existence and true intimacy. Moreover, interpersonal communication is reduced to vacuous, distended conversations (or more appropriately, monologues by the self-consumed Alexandre) that similarly devalue human connection to impressive, but ultimately meaningless words. In the end, it is this underlying emptiness that the filmmaker exposes through Alexandre’s moribund, pleasure-seeking, existential limbo: the trauma of a generation struggling to come to terms with profound change, cultural alienation, and the collapse of a once seemingly attainable ideal. –strictly film school
Time-traveling can be demoralizing — when you’re going in reverse. Watching “The Mother and the Whore,†you find that you’re back in the movie-sludge of the nineteen-fifties, when a number of mediocre French films focused on sub-Sagan characters: numb, semi-paralyzed creatures who hardly had the calories to drag themselves through the day. Then, boredom was a hip disease—and it all comes rushing down the spout of memory when Jean-Pierre Léaud explains that he lives “in a world where people are old at 17.†Jean Eustache’s picture, which was shown last night at the New York Film Festival, is so reminiscent of those mossy productions that you start wondering if nothing has been learned about movies, about acting, about men and women. The discoveries of the last decade have been erased. Or else the sixties never happened: you were just hallucinating.
All in all, it’s tempting to mail the director a list of complaints as long as his movie. What possessed him to use slow dissolves when we yearn for quick cuts? Or to give us a tour of the inside of a refrigerator or lessons in putting records on turntables or how to make a call? And occasionally, when Eustache builds toward a scene that might be almost interesting—in which these weary people might have to cope with one another — he leaves it out. The program notes report that he “now hates most films.†So this picture may be his vengeance on the apes who like them. But perhaps he was paying homage to Gore Vidal’s Myra Breckinridge, who had “a radical theory†that “boredom in the arts can be, under the right circumstances, dull.†–Nora Sayre, The New York Times
>>buy it on VHS<<Â (no dvd exists)
or
get it from megaupload, part 1 & part2
ИюльÑкий дождь (July Rain) // МарлеÌн ХуциÌев (Marlen Khutsiyev) // 1967
November 4, 2009
After the first 15 minutes of Marlen Khutsiyev’s â€July Rain†you may be tempted to pack a suitcase and catch a plane to Moscow, 1966. Like Godard and Truffaut’s black-and-white Paris, it’s where the cool kids seem to be — talking, arguing, dancing to jazzy records and trying to construct modern lives.
Showing in the invaluable â€Envisioning Russia†series at the Walter Reade Theater, â€July Rain†has a loose, improvisatory style, influenced by the Nouvelle Vague and punctuated with lyrical passages in which the camera restlessly probes city streets. About a group of young intellectuals, in particular Lena (an expressive Yevgeniya Uralova, above, with a Julie Christie bob) and her boyfriend, Volodya (Aleksandr Belyavsky), the film has more parties and picnics than plot. But like many Russian movies from the 1960s, it tries to paint an honest picture of daily life and real people. You can feel its internal tug of war between optimism and melancholy: the filmmaking may be exciting — there’s always something interesting to look at — but melancholy wins hands down. (Not surprisingly, it was criticized for being too dark. Mr. Khutsiyev’s previous film, the brilliant â€I Am Twenty,†had to be reshot and edited after Khrushchev attacked it.) –Rachel Saltz, The New York Times
When Lena decides that her fiancé is not the man she thought he was, the breakup causes her to reflect on her life and to wonder about the kind ofworld she and other members of her generation are set to inherit. Then, during a cooling rain, she meets Zhenya…An invaluable record of its moment, July Rain is an engaging portrait of ’60s Moscow youth—the first generation to have grown up far from the shadows of war and Stalinist repression. The well-loved soundtrack features the work of several Soviet pop superstars of the ’60s. —Dryden Theater, Rochester, NY
get it from megaupload: part1 & part2
or
nothing, because it’s out of print
Fleas And Vacations
Q: When we go on vacation, we board our dogs at the kennel and leave the house closed up for three weeks. As soon as we get home we are attacked by fleas. The dogs have been away. What is going on?
A: The fleas that were in the egg and larval stage have pupated and matured and were waiting in their cocoons for the proper stimulation to emerge (vibration, carbon dioxide). In order to keep this from happening, next time treat your home with an insecticide that kills adult fleas and an insect growth regulator to prevent immature fleas from developing.
July | 2012 | Fleas and dogs in Barcelona
Porktie, an English language magazine in Barcelona is giving away a Vespa rental for two, which you can redeem at anytime in the next month.
These contests are genuine and awesome fun. I’ve already been to see ‘Exit through the gift shop’ in Monjuic’s open air cinema thanks to them, and T won the last Vespa contest.
All you have to do is go on Porkties’s Facebook page, ‘like’ em (obviously), and then when they announce the contest at 1pm today, you’ll need to leave a comment on the contest. Then comes the fun part, contact as many of your Facebook friends as you can and get them to ‘like’ your comment. The comment with the most number of ‘likes’ wins. Simples!
Mr.T got a ridiculous 59 votes last time, someone out there should break that record!
Oh the shame of it! I’ve become a symptom of my time. Head down, scurrying out to work and then wandering home, always lost inside my myopic little world of worries; it took a facebook post for me to realise my neighbourhood squat has been evicted and bricked up.
Now Barrialonia, as it was called, was not just a squat.
It was a community center. It used to host concerts, political meetings and community parties. They celebrated Id last year by cooking up a massive pot of biriyani and setting tables and chairs out on La Rambla del Raval for an open air picnic for the neighbourhood.
They organised makeshift movie nights on the Rambla with a small projector and screen, and anyone interested just had to park their bum on the street and get comfortable. They hosted debates and talks about Real Democracy and kept the movement alive between the more high-profile marches.
The council’s reasons for shutting the squat down are ‘structural concerns’ with the building. They used similar excuses to shut down other squats in Barcelona in the past, including la Makabra, Miles de Viviendas and Ruina Amalia. In all these cases, the squats served as community centres which hosted art classes and exhibitions, spaces for political debate and spaces to celebrate cultures.
What follows is usually either swift demolition of the building or comprehensive bricking up of all entrances, which is then followed by….. nothing.
Nada.
They won’t attempt to replace the space with a council built community center, sports center or art space. They can’t afford to. That much is blatantly obvious, this being an economic crisis and all. So why go and kick the sand box over in the first place? Is it so bad to have people with initiative doing something in their community?
Dear government, haven’t you realised it is the people with ideas, opinions and initiative who will save you from this nightmarish crisis?
Earlier this year for my birthday, I decided to buy myself a water lily. I ordered it online from Penlan Perennials.
My little lily arrived, was duly planted, and promptly withered and died. When moving house we were about to fling it out but realised that under the rotten mess, there were new shoots. So the lily moved house with us. Then sat in a plastic bag in the bathroom for about a week. Then got dumped in plant pot with an inch of water over it.
Then, for no logical reason, it decided to fight like a muthafuka!
Yay!
To celebrate this little clear water revival we had going, I decided we needed biodiversity. Sadly the aquatic frogs in the fish shop were too delicate for al fresco living and the turtles were bought and returned within 12 hours. I fulfilled a childhood dream of having turtles, but they tried to eat the lily.
I know. Duh!
I then decided to take my little fish net, a glass jar and a reluctant husband (who eventually had more fun that he’ll admit) down to Parc Ciutadella to gather pond creatures instead.
My ambitions were small. A water boatman, pond skater, water beetle or similar. I had no hopes of tadpoles or dragonfly larvae.
What we found instead was nothing but barren ponds. Even the big boating pond appeared to have nothing more than fish, turtles and crayfish (the cockroaches of the fresh water world). No insects. Zilch!
I’m naively shocked. Yes this is in the middle of a large crowded city, and we’ve made no place for the poor wee buggers, but insects are tenacious. They don’t need a gilded invitation or the red carpet rolled out. They turn up, steal your spot on the couch, kick their shoes off, switch the telly on and ask for a beer.
A near complete absence of the single most important section of the ecosystem, from what I assumed was a natural oasis (park pond) makes me suspect the good city of Barcelona is waging chemical warfare on our little amigos.
Internet research threw up very little on treatment of water for public ponds. You can read the latest on pond conservation at the European Pond Conservation Network, but it’s very boffin (UK Slang for scientist) orientated and has no papers on urban conservation. Boo!
One study which does look promising is the Reading Urban Pond Project by students at Reading University. The students have created several ponds in the city of Reading and then left them as blank canvases. They are now going to monitor nature’s ability to populate these ponds and what level of biodiversity can be achieved by simply letting it be.
Have I revealed too much of my inner geek with this post?
Possibly. But…..
It’s not all topless lesbians and waking up in a nest of beer cans people, it’s also about making space for the frogs.
Start your biodiversity patch today! Bring back insects to Barcelona!
After craving Ramen Noodles for months and months, I finally broke.
I found a relatively easy looking recipe, which used plain language and explained all most of the Japanese terms.
For the ingredients I went to Yang Kuang, on 12 Passeig de Sant Juan near Arc de Triomf. This is a brilliant wee store specializing in imported Chinese food. I found most of the ingredients I needed, enough to not feel bad about ignoring the rest anyway. I also bought a bag of frozen pork and vegetable dumplings for about 2.75 Euros, and they tasted awesome!
If you go looking for this place, ignore the other poncy ‘gourmet’ shops on the street. You will get half the selection and pay double the price. Yang Kuang looks like a warehouse and the produce is all garish plastic, and vacuum packed bags with cheap paper labels. A more reassuring sign of authenticity than wicker baskets and pretty labels.
Anyway, almost 24 hours after starting to cook…… ta da!
The recipe I kinda followed:
Confessions
I used ready made chicken stock, ginger paste and pepper to make the soup, instead of this whole carry on (described below). I used Pak choi instead of spinach, and I couldn’t find naruto (a slice of cured fish with a pink swirly pattern). I bought spicy bamboo shoot instead of shinachiku and cheap rice wine instead of sake.
Note: Don’t be a eejeet like me and ask the Chinese shop girls about the ingredients; although they all have Chinese origins the recipe uses Japanese names.
Shoyu Ramen
Ingredients: (for 4 servings)
1kg chicken bones for 1.5 liter chicken soup,1 white onion (leek), 30 grams ginger, 2 liters water, 4-5 tablespoons soy sauce, 3 tablespoons sake, 1/3 teaspoon salt, a little pepper and sesame oil, 4 balls of chinese noodles, 8 pieces yakibuta (chinese pork ham), 4 pieces naruto, 1/2 bunch spinach, 1/2 sheet nori, 1/2 green onion, a little shinachiku (chinese flavored bamboo shoots)
Preparation
Soup:
1. Clean chicken bone, remove fat and sinew, wash well. Then cut it into large butsugiri.
2. Boil water in pot, put bones in it. Boil bones until the color of the bone changes. Place bones on strainer to drain water.
3. Prepare a large deep pot with water (1.5 liter), leek, ginger, and bones together. Start to boil on a high flame.
4. When it comes to a boil, skim the scum.
5. Continue heating for 1 hour with mid-low flame, while skimming the scum often.
6. Filter it on the bowl by strainer with thin cloth or kitchen towel on top. Add Soya sauce to taste.
Toppings:
1. Cut spinach into strips and steam.
2. Cut nori into quarter sizes.
3. Slice green onion into thin koguchigiri (thin slice), soak in water, then dry with cloth or paper towel.
Putting the dish together:
1. Heat up soup stock, add soy sauce, sake, salt, pepper and sesame oil.
2. Boil water in a large pot, boil noodles till just cooked (about 4 min).
3. Set serving bowls warm, pour soup, put noodles.
4. Add yakibuta, naruto, spinach, shinachiku and nori on top.
5. Shake pepper and garnish with green onion as desired.
This is the most common way to make Shoyu Ramen. To make it much easier use ready made soup sock.
If yakibuta pork is not available, make it as follows:
Set 600 grams of pork block tied with cotton string in tsukejiru soup for a while. Tsukejiru (1 teaspoon grated ginger, 3 tablespoons of each sugar, soy sauce and sake, a little pepper). Put oil in a chinese frying pan, fry the block of meat until it browned, add rest of tsukejiru in to pan and cook in the oven till tender (about an hour).
These young ladies were feeling repressed as a result of their sexuality.
So they painted their nipples black and drove through the city on the top of a bus.
I don’t think they feel repressed any more.
Since I neglected the photo blog project, the order of pictures has been completely messed up. This picture is from Sunday last week.
This was taken in the hot harsh dawn of the San Juan party on Bogatell beach. Doesn’t she look peaceful?
The Rainbow is cool.
I know it. You know it. The baby knows it.
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